Recognize Who Can Provide Referrals

As with all promotional methods in your marketing mix, it is not possible to fully utilize referrals as a meaningful marketing tool without understanding how referrals work and recognizing from whom they may come.

 

• Develop a list of all of those who have referred a patient to you, including existing patients, other doctors in your community, family and friends, staff, and associated agencies.  There may also be clergy, attorneys, area business people, and other professional associates who have already served as sources of referral.
  
   
• Don’t overlook the sources of those new patients who may have been referred directly to your hygienist.  It is beneficial to go through patient and office files, and to look to your staff, friends and family members to identify as many known sources as possible.
  
   
• After compiling this list, maintain it by incorporating a “By whom were you referred?” line on your form for new patients.  Whenever a patient is received by means of referral, immediately record the source in your database by name, address (to accommodate forwarding an expression of gratitude), and relationship to your patient.  By all means, keep the information current in a dedicated computerized file.
  
   
• Innovation is the Key.  Generating new patients through word-of-mouth referrals is one of the most productive and cost-effective strategies for growing your practice.  The key is being innovative, consistently finding fresh new ideas to positively communicate with your current patients and with those people in your community network.

 
This TurboTactics™ insight will help you increase your number of new patients through one of your most cost-effective and consistent means…referrals.  As with most of our TurboTactics,™ for a more detailed explanation visit our Explore Marketing section.

 

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